City

Starred review from February 13, 2012
Smith (Doomsday Men: The Real Doctor Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon), a University College London researcher, has penned an engrossing, illustrated guide to 7,000 years of urban life for an age when more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. From the earliest Sumerian city of Eridu to the wired eco-cities of the future, Smith embarks on a multicentury tour highlighting urban history, customs, infrastructure, architecture, language, markets, crime, parks, cemeteries, transportation, food, and leisure activities across cultures. He excels at providing panoramic yet focused views of a particular subject, such as when tracing the development of language from cuneiform script to 16th-century street speech and its effect on cockney, to the new London dialect of the 21st century, Jafaican. Whether evoking the slums of Mumbai, a 1905 dinner party at London’s Savoy Hotel, or the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán before Cortés conquered it in 1521, Smith proves a lively, learned narrator with a strong synthetic sense. Discursive, imaginative, and comprehensive, his analysis of everything from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to skateboarding and graffiti should be savored. Read in parts or whole, readers can wander and drift, and enjoy the element of surprise, just as in the exploration of a real city. Photos. Agent: Peter Tallack, the Science Factory.

Starred review from March 15, 2012
Smith (Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon, 2007, etc.) composes a polyphonic paean to our urban past, present and future. More than once in this ambitious text, the author declares that "cities are our greatest creation"--here he emerges as urbanology's head cheerleader. Each section focuses on a specific aspect of urban life (hotels, skyscrapers, entertainment, etc.) and offers both a brisk history and a current assessment. Throughout this literary and culturally hip book, Smith distributes numerous sidebars, from the history of the parking meter (born in Oklahoma City) to red-light districts. He alludes to Melville (the first to use in print the word "down-town"), Dickens, Poe, Henry James (who didn't like skyscrapers); he mentions films like Metropolis, Blade Runner and Dirty Harry. The long section about the possible effects of global warming on city life, especially in coastal areas, will probably not sit well with warming's deniers--oh well. Although Smith often waxes lyrical about city life (he's a lover in complete thrall), especially about such features as public parks, libraries, museums and street food, he does not neglect the dark side. One disgusting detail: the sewer lines clogged with fat that lie beneath areas featuring lots of fast-food restaurants. The author provides statistics when he needs them--about half of the world's population now lives in cities (by 2050, he thinks it will be 75 percent)--and a section, both gloomy and upbeat, about urban ruins (e.g., Pompeii and Detroit). Smith writes sensitively about the best of places (Masdar City in Abu Dhabi--a planned community) and the worst (the Dharavi slum in Mumbai), and only neglects bridges and tunnels--a city book minus London and Brooklyn bridges! As exciting, sprawling and multifarious as a shining city on a hill.

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Starred review from April 1, 2012

Like any great city, this is a book to get lost in, to try out new areas, to sample, to savor, to enjoy, and all without the fear of bedbugs or getting mugged! Smith (honorary research fellow, University Coll., London; Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon) travels around the world--through time as well as space--to introduce readers to the "archetypal" city in all its aspects and evolutionary stages. "Visiting" cities from ancient Tenochtitlan and Ur to Masdar City, in today's Abu Dabi, and London, Smith gives readers glimpses into the past, present, and future of these urban centers, commenting on their markets, parks, slums, traffic, capsule hotels, and even their gladiators. Treating this work as he would any other guidebook, Smith also includes information on local customs, money, shopping, places to eat, and street languages, enhancing the volume with images, maps, photographs, and drawings of cities and aspects of city life. VERDICT A wonderful and revealing look at cities in all their glory from viewpoints throughout history. Highly recommended for readers across many subject categories, including urban studies, cultural history, and travel.--Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis

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